


On Family

by whattheflameo



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Sister-Sister Relationship, i guess?, lin is a good older sister, long-suffering older sibling, operation: beifong, su needs to look at her life choices, su what are you DOING
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-06
Updated: 2020-11-06
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:08:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27418549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whattheflameo/pseuds/whattheflameo
Summary: In which Su has a long-overdue existential crisis, and Lin is (begrudgingly) a good older sister.Set immediately after Operation: Beifong.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 40





	On Family

Flying bison has got to be the most outdated mode of travel in existence. With the recent revolution of airships, biplanes, high speed boats, and Satomobiles, combined the risk domestication conveys to one of the world’s most endangered species, Suyin really has to wonder why Tenzin decided to revive the practice. Preservation of culture and all that, she supposes; he has always been so preoccupied with the past. Usually she can empathize with his desire to bring back his eradicated culture, but right now she’s just annoyed. Her daughter is taking their family to Republic City on the back of Juicy the Flying Bison, the only travel that involves no earth _and_ no metal. Spirits, she would rather have walked.

The wind snatches at her hair as she shakes her head at herself. It’s not that she’s not grateful for the rescue; she couldn’t be more so, almost cried when the wall opened up to reveal Lin and _Mom_ , of all people, knows that she is blessed down to her boots. She’s just so sick and tired of being out of her element. After nearly a week locked in a wooden cage, Su is beginning to think she understands why her sister still has nightmares about losing her bending. It’s not the same and she knows it. Being unable to reach the rock around her, suspended by ropes- _ropes,_ _ridiculous, so much weaker than metal cords or chains, they could have at least used platinum so her family wasn’t_ _at risk of plummeting to their deaths, not that they weren’t at risk of Kuvira suddenly deciding that they were too_ _dangerous to be kept alive, but surely Bataar Jr. wouldn’t have let her kill them, but then again did she really know_ _him well enough anymore to be confident in that statement?_ \- This is getting dark, what had she been thinking about again?

Oh, _Lin_. Lin, and how actually losing her bending must have been _so much worse._ Su can’t imagine being able to touch the earth but not to hear it sing and respond and echo back. Lin, who has apparently learned how to fly an air bison, despite the facts that it’s a barely-resurrected art and she’s not an airbender, because there is quite literally nothing she cannot do. She’s sitting up at Juicy’s head, her posture alert as she watches the landscape in front of them as though she’s totally comfortable despite the complete lack of earth, and not for the first time, Su is unspeakably grateful to have her sister back in her life.

Opal is ostensibly going to switch off with Lin soon. She’s just woken up from where she was sleeping on Bolin’s shoulder. Her beautiful Opal, so brave and talented and grown up, and an airbender to boot! Su watches her stretch and thanks every spirit who’s listening for her daughter. For their whole family, finally safe and away from Kuvira. Wing and Wei are sprawled across each other, snoring. Huan, asleep under his father’s arm, doesn’t even complain about Wei’s legs being thrown across his own. They all seem need the closeness right now. _It’s not her whole_ _family_ , the voice in the back of her head whispers. Her son is still with the monster. The monster had been family.

She turns over one shoulder to watch the ground pass below them. _Had been family._ For so long, some small part of her had held out hope that Kuvira would stop, would give up the mantle of dictator and come home. But now she had gone too far. Kuvira threatened her family, the very lives of her husband and children and all of her citizens. Had paraded Su and Wing and Wei around like trophies in those awful platinum boxes. Had torn her city and it’s beautiful domes to shreds. Had nearly killed the Avatar after Su had just gotten her back.

Her mind drifts to young Korra and how the brave girl had tried so hard to protect Su’s city. According to Bolin and Opal, she had made it back to Republic City, thank goodness for small miracles. There are few times that Su has ever felt more helpless than she had at watching her get the absolute shit beaten out of her. She knows Korra and she certainly knows Kuvira; the latter should have been no match for the Avatar. Whatever is wrong with Korra is no small thing.

What had she been up to, in the six months since she had disappeared? When she’d appeared in Su’s sitting room, Su had been too worried about the invasion and too thrilled at even seeing her to notice how skinny and frail she was. After a few hours, though, it became clear that though Korra was much improved from the immediate aftermath of Zaheer- _that wretched, twisted son of a bitch, who had brought so much suffering to everyone around_ _him and set the Earth Kingdom on this path to fascism, who put that awful, devastated look on Korra’s face, and the_ _poison that Su can still feel herself removing in her veins, and if she ever gets the chance she’ll kill him herself,_ _gladly, damn what Tenzin and Lin have to say about it_ \- this wasn’t the same confident, headstrong girl who had learned to metal bend on the greens of Su’s estate. When she hedges away from a confrontation owith Kuvira, Su  
had automatically deemed her more of a liability than an asset and decided to take Kuvira on her own- and what a mistake that had been, but what choice had she had? She had to protect her city, she couldn’t just give _Zaofu up,_ _and Korra had been in no shape to fight anyone, Su had needed to end the standoff before Korra was forced to fight_ _and had ended up bringing the fight even closer._

"Stare any harder at those mountains and you’ll shift 'em." Su turns sharply to see Lin standing over her, one eyebrow raised. Haloed in the dim light of the moon, still in full armor with her hair blowing faintly in the wind, her sister looks like some kind of wartime spirit. It’s not far from the truth. She watches Su critically for a long moment before sitting down beside her. "When’s the last time you slept?"

Su decides not to meet her eye on that one. "Not long ago, I don’t think." Lin sends her younger sister a skeptical look, but by some miracle decides not to argue any further. She’s angled so that she blocks most of Su’s view of the landscape, forcing her to look back into the saddle at her sleeping family.

"Did you see Korra, before you left?" Su suddenly asks. "The last time I saw her, she... it was bad, Lin."

"Yeah, we all heard," Lin cuts her off. "She’s fine."

And really, that _would_ be comforting, but her sister’s version of fine is usually somewhere between "only one broken bone" and "on the verge of mental breakdown but physically unharmed." Her face gives away less than her words had. After everything that’s gone wrong, Su needs to know whether Korra is actually, truly okay, or whether she’s responsible for the episode that ended barely-standing Avatar. "I’m serious. I know you've probably surpassed some emotional quota today, but I’m worried about her," she snaps. "The last I saw her, she wasn’t even conscious, and the way she was talking while she was in Zaofu-"

Lin has the audacity to roll her eyes. "I know, Su. Who do you think was there when she got back?" Something flickers across her face, the vague, guarded cousin of guilt or fear that Lin allows herself as opposed to the real emotions, before her features harden again.

Su takes her hand. "I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to imply..." She knows that Lin cares more about Korra than she lets on, looks over and suddenly sees the scene on the airship from all those years ago, Lin raging about Korra’s decision to surrender herself. _‘You don’t understand, Su, she means it. She’s stupid enough to believe she can take him and_ _brave enough to try.'_

"I know," Lin repeats. She squeezes Su’s hand to show she hasn’t taken offense. "If I had my way, I’d have kept her out of the field, but we had an issue with the spirit vines. I had to let her get involved after Jinora went missing."

"Jinora? Is she okay?" Su immediately demands, eyes as wide as Powerball discs. _Not another one, not sweet Jinora, why can’t they seem to protect the children-_

"She’s fine, they both are. Korra got her and everyone else back. Went and confronted Zaheer and got past whatever spirit mumbo-jumbo was blocking her from the Avatar state." Su shudders at the thought of Korra being anywhere near that monster again.

"I saw her try and fail to enter the Avatar state," Su recalls. "But even still, she should have been able to take Kuvira without it. It was like only half of her was fighting."

"She needed time to recover. The effects of the poison took a few days to fully-" As soon as she says it, Lin grimaces.

"What do you mean, a few days?" Su demands. Her heart starts racing when she realizes that there’s only one thing it _could_ mean. "I removed that poison years ago."

Lin looks immensely uncomfortable. "Well, uh, apparently, when you removed the poison, you, uh, missed a few spots? Mom helped her get the last of it out the day before she showed up in Zaofu, so the effects hadn’t completely worn off when she went into that fight."

And Su is listening, she really is, but her mind can’t get past the notion that she hadn’t gotten all the poison out. She had left _poison_ inside of _Korra_. Korra had gone through three extra years of weakness and agony because Su had screwed up. Spirits, would any of this have happened if she had just done it right? _She failed, this is all her fault-_

"Su?" Lin is staring at her. There’s a deep frown marring her face, pulling at the scars on her cheek that are Su’s _fault, also Su’s fault, she thought she‘d stopped hurting the people she loved but she’d scarred her sister and driven away Kuvira and Bataar Jr. and gotten Wing and Wei arrested and put Opal at risk and left poison inside Korra_  
_and-_

"Su! Hey!" Lin says sharply, grabbing her by the shoulders and shaking twice. This time, when her vision clears, she’s able to focus a bit more. Lin is eyeing her appraisingly, as though she can see every thought running through Su’s head. Su stares back, dreading what she’s going to say. "You really need sleep," Lin finally states.

Of all the ‘I told you so’s Su had expected, that hadn’t been one. "What?"

"Sleep," Lin says slowly, as though she’s dense. "That thing people do when they’re not being held hostage?"

Su splutters for a moment. "You... _You’re_ lecturing _me_ about sleep?" She exclaims. Even she can hear the note of hysteria creeping into her voice. Lin, who Su has personally witnessed go for days without rest multiple times since their reconnection, is trying to tell her about healthy habits. If that doesn’t sum up the situation, she doesn’t know what would.

Lin narrows her eyes in an unimpressed look that she really ought to get patented. "Just lay down," she commands, using the hands she still has on Su’s shoulders to push her into doing so. Su ends up curled on her side, her head resting on her sister’s lap, and okay, maybe she’s a little overtired. Her whirlwind thoughts from minutes ago seem much less daunting when Lin drapes one protective arm over her side. She reaches up and clutches Lin’s leg with one hand, and lets out a shuddering sigh.

"Everyone’s okay," Lin assures her. Her voice is quiet, soft in a way that Su hasn't heard since they were children and she'd still run crying to Lin after a bad day. Since the last time Lin had chased the monsters away. "You’re all out of there. Get some rest; we’ll regroup after that."

"But I-"

"Go to _sleep_ , Suyin." There’s no anger behind it, hardly even any of the normal gruffness. Her eyes are suddenly burning, so she closes them rather than deal with that. By the time Lin’s other hand comes up to rest on top of her head, Su is already asleep.

**Author's Note:**

> Look, I love Su, but she really, really needs to evaluate her life choices. Like. Woman, get it together. What are you doing?
> 
> Still on tumble as whattheflameo if you're bored.


End file.
